Answering 439 Bible Contradictions: #12

Answer: In the Old Testament (OT), God enacted the death penalty for adultery among his people, provided it followed due process. The New Testament (NT) calls adultery a sin but not necessarily a crime and urges the church to excommunicate its members that refuse to forsake it.

Problem: Leviticus 20:10 clearly demands the death penalty for adultery, while Jesus in John 8 lets the adulterous women go free.

Explanation: Leviticus 20:10 states that the punishment for adultery is death. “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” The penalty is emphatic. Literally, “dying he shall die.” There is no doubt. If a person has sexual intercourse with someone else’s spouse, he must be put to death (Dt. 22:22-24).

Some Jews promoted unequal weights. They’d say a guy named Levi, for example, is guilty of adultery only if he sleeps with another man’s wife. But Eliza commits adultery if she sleeps with anyone other than her husband.

The Old Testament demanded capital punishment for a host of sins besides adultery, including rebellion against parents (Dt. 21:18-21), bestiality (Ex. 21:18), worshiping false gods (Dt. 17:2-5), kidnapping (Ex. 21:16), witchcraft (Ex. 22:17), child sacrifice (Lv. 20:2), murder (Lv. 24:17), incest (Lv. 20:11-12) and homosexuality (Lv. 20:14). Within a Jewish theocracy, God wanted to demonstrate the seriousness of sin. From time to time, however, there was mercy for OT murderers, like Cain (Gn. 4:8-16), Moses (Ex. 2:13-15) and David (2Sm. 12:13).

A shift happened in the era of the New Testament (NT). Within its pages there are no passages plainly demanding the death penalty. This is because the Mosaic Law given to Israel was unique, the Mosaic Covenant consisting of hundreds of commands.

But this Mosaic covenant is now obsolete. The NT tells us we are “not under the law” (Rm. 6:14-15) and “released from the law” (Rm. 7:6). Instead, Christians are under the law of Christ (1Cor. 9:20-21).

One plain way we can see the NT era is “not under the law” (Gal. 5:18) is how adultery is addressed differently than in the OT. NT Christians guilty of unrepentant adultery and other sexual sins are excommunicated (1Cor. 5:13), not executed.

The story of the woman at the well in John 8, historically known as the pericope adulterae, is today almost universally rejected as an original part of John’s Gospel. For example, no church fathers addressed this story, meaning it was probably a later addition. Most Bible versions place this story in brackets, though there’s good reason to believe the story could have occurred.

Nevertheless, Jesus’ words do not contradict the death penalty for adultery in Lev 20:10. The Lord knew that the Pharisees were setting up a trap. If Jesus votes “Stone Her”, He would lose his status as a compassionate friend of sinners. If Jesus votes “Forgive Her”, He’d be rejecting the Law.

Jesus exposes their hypocrisy in two ways. First, He notices their duplicity. Where’s the man? That he’s absent from the story shows the Pharisees weren’t really interested in justice (Num. 35).

Second, Jesus knew the Pharisees were just as guilty. He said: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn. 8:7). Per the OT law (Dt. 17:7), a witness to the crime commenced the execution. Only the innocent could do that. So they walked away.

Three Practical Observations

First, the death penalty for murder still applies today. Genesis 9:6 uses absolute language. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” God gave this law long before the Mosaic Law. Moreover, the NT gives the power of “the sword” (i.e. judgment, including execution) to government (Rm. 13:1-7).

Second, the OT is still relevant today because all of Scripture is profitable (2Tm. 3:16). It reflects the eternal attributes of God. It also expands and illustrates many of the commands restated in the NT.

Third, just because the NT doesn’t mandate execution for adultery doesn’t mean it has lowered the bar for sexual fidelity. Jesus said that even to look at a woman with lust is adultery (Mt. 5:28). Modern culture trivializes adultery, lauding it through movies, magazines and media. Still, as of 2023, there are fifteen states in the U.S. with adultery laws, which consider extramarital sex a serious crime. If a considerable portion of a rebellious nation views adultery as severe (at least on paper), how much more should Christians today?

Conclusion

Christians today don’t punish adultery in exactly the same way as the Old Testament. Wise believers should love adulterers by demonstrating from the Bible adultery’s root (lust, Pr. 6:25), trap (seduction, Pr. 7:14-21), danger (divorce, Mal. 2:14), consequence (God’s judgment, Hb. 13:4), and solution (Christ, 1Cor. 6:11).